Here's a map of countries that have not yet adopted the metric system

It "doesn't work" without relying on the metric system to keep it right. Without the metric system there is no standard for what the Imperial system's units constitute and a measurement system with no standard is not a functional measurement system it's just a naming convention.

I must say that, for everyday use, the relations between the base units are a major advantage. Consider:



Sure, those are not the absolutely exact conversions anymore, but they are close enough.

Name one. Now you are just plain being dishonest in addition to daft. Name one magical advantage you saw me claim.

By the way - this was a rather good rant!

We get seduced into saying things like "A pint's a pound, the world around" That makes a gallon come out to eight pounds. That's not even close enough for oilfield use.

The BI system certainly doesn't need metric units for definitions. The BI foot could just as easily be defined in terms of the speed of light, a calculation which would take only seconds. As for the unit of mass, having a standard kilogram in a vault in Paris is hardly an ideal choice, since it isn't very easy to access to compare something to it. Even distributing almost exact duplicates of the one in the vault to other countries wouldn't be much better, since they would still be inconvenient to access. The BI system could certainly create a standard pound mass and lock it in a vault in the US. This is not a standardized definition which is very demanding to emulate.

Oh, let me take a second to remember a magical advantage you claimed that the metric system has over the BI system....How about claiming that the BI system "doesn't work?"

Sure, if the Imperial system were properly maintained it would be properly maintained. But that doesn't change that it hasn't been properly maintained for hundreds of years and is defunct. So while it could be less daft, it isn't and is as daft as I claimed it is. So what's your point?

And when are you going to come up with a "magical" attribute to the metric system that I've claimed?

You were using your "magical" straw man long before we even went that far. Where's your intellectual honesty?

And as I've already stated multiple times now, as a objective measuring system it doesn't work without the metric system to establish its standards. And in you can't measure non-mechanical electrical units at all in the system.

So if you have issue with that, tell me how you measure volts in the Imperial system. How does that work?

You asked me for a magical advantage you claimed that the metric system has over the BI system. I listed one - specifically referring to your statement that the BI system "doesn't work," a claim you have yet to back up.

You measure current, voltage, and resistance in the BI system exactly the same way as you do in the metric system, with the ampere, the volt, and the ohm.

Let me circumvent this whole discussion by getting to the heart of the issue. If a layman, engineer, or scientist uses the BI system for measuring length and mass, what difficulty will he have that someone using the metric system wouldn't have?

Want me to list them for you again?




Don't gloss over your intellectual dishonesty, you came in here making this a political US vs the world argument and had tossed around your "magic" straw man several times before we even got to that point. You know as well as I do that you have nothing at all to specifically cite for those times you knocked down your "magical" straw man.

But even if we let you slip that one by, I did back it up. You can't use the Imperial system without relying on the metric system. The end user is not the whole picture and the Imperial system doesn't even have the regulation it needs to be a standard of measurement. The Imperial system is not just a naming convention, it used to have regulation and maintenance that it doesn't currently have, and now just relies on the metric system.

As a defunct system it "doesn't work". It can't stand alone without the regulation and maintenance that it lacks and that won't be forthcoming.

Claiming it "works" by using the metric system to keep it together is like claiming a car "works" just because it's moving while others are pushing it.

I've really been trying to just keep my trap shut, but,
Robert keeps saying car stuff...

Brandon, how many parts on any American car produced in the last 10 years can you unfasten with a standard wrench?

Why is that, do you wonder?

First of all, I didn't "come in here" doing anything more than anyone else does here, stating my opinion, something you appear to regard as inherently unfair.

Secondly, the BI system doesn't have to rely on the metric system at all. The foot can be defined with a hand calculator in terms of the speed of light, and the pound could have a special example bar in a vault very easily, a system which sucks anyway, since it's not reproducible by people unless they live in Paris. You have claimed that the BI system "doesn't work," but are unable to state in what way, and you have now as much as admitted that someone who worked with the BI system of length and mass would have no difficulty whatever, other than powers of 10 and compatibility with other countries. You have proven my original thesis that people tend to attribute a degree of advantage to the metric system which it doesn't have. Thanks.

All you're doing is re-stating the compatibility advantage, which I admitted at the outset. That doesn't make the metric system inherently better. If the whole world agreed on the XYZ system of weights and measures, it would bestow a compatibility advantage to people who worked with it, without indicating in the slightest that the XYZ system was inherently superior.

Brandon, do you think it important that we compete in the world marketplace?

Again with this? I don't have any problem with you coming in here with an opinion, I have a problem with the daftitude and intellectual dishonesty that came with it. You are free to state your opinion but I'm under no obligation to hold it in high regard.



But it does, and you were asking about how it "doesn't work", not how it "could work" (if properly maintained).

The fact that nobody thinks it's a good enough system to maintain it at the level of a global standard on its own is itself a drawback to the use of the system because it's defunct.



And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. Sure, if the Imperial system weren't defunct it would suit your argument well. But it is defunct.



You are intellectually dishonest and I have stated which way each time you ignored it and asked again. It doesn't work without relying on the metric system to keep it accurate and to provide the measurements that it completely lacks.

How do you measure electrical units again without using the metric system? Your answer was that you just use the metric system and call it the Imperial system and are the more intellectually dishonest for doing so.



Again, this is intellectual dishonesty. There is much more than that that you can't refute and haven't yet ceded to that has been posted time and time again only for you to ignore and repeat the same "magical" straw men.



I can see how you'd like to keep pretending that is so. It's better than the more realistic assessment of you going on about magical straw men that nobody else is talking about and having nothing but their straw legs to stand on.

Yes, I think it important that we compete in the world marketplace.

Let's see if I can summarize this. I stated that I have no objection to going metric, but, that beyond compatibility and powers of 10, there is no real advantage. I stated that people seem to atribute some magical additional advantage to it which it doesnt have. You basically objected to my having a dissenting opinion, and then, when I accuse you of being intolerant of dissent, say, it's not the dissent you disagree with but the fact that the opinion is daft, and also, sadly, for some reason, find it necessary to accuse me of dishonesty, all nothing more than smokescreen for the fact that you are intolerant of dissent.

The whole thrust of your objection to the metric system seems to be that length and mass have been defined for a very long time in terms of their metric counterparts - something which is of no conceivable disadvantage to people working in the BI system.

I asked you to tell me some disadvantage that someone working in BI units of mass and length would have, beyond powers of ten and compatibility, and you couldn't.

Finally, you have made absurd statements such as "the BI system doesn't work," and then, when asked to say what you mean by this, simply claim that the previous discussion constitutes an answer.

It's clear that you have no intention of responding to any of my points except by repeating endlessly that (a) you have already responded, (b) that my points are straw men, (c) that I'm dishonest, and (d) that the metric system's fatal flaw is that it defines length and mass in terms of the metric units. If you can't or won't actually argue with what I post, I see no point in enabling you further. The fog of your bad logic aside, you have proven my original point.

You are intellectually dishonest. Don't like it? Don't lie.



I have no objection to the metric system silly. But if you mean the Imperial system, you are still wrong. I've listed many reasons it is daft that you deliberately ignore (that intellectual dishonesty again).



You are a liar. I did so many times and here's one example.



You are a liar.

• I talk about the Imperial system being defunct and say it doesn't work
  
• You ask me to further substantiate the claim
  
• I do so, and indicate to you that the fact that the Imperial system no longer serves its core purpose of being a measurement standard is why it is not working.
  
• You read and respond to my reply But immediately afterward you ask the same question again.
  
• I answer you again, saying that a measurement system that is not maintained as a standard does not work as a measurement system. I give you a specific example of how the Imperial system has no way to measure electrical units because it hasn't been maintained.
  
• You ask the question again, and respond to my query about how the Imperial system measures electricity by saying that you simply use the metric system's units. This is yet another example of the Imperial system NOT WORKING and you brush this off by the intellectually bankrupt reply that it works because you can use the metric system in situations where it doesn't work at all (like electricity). If your argument is that through using the metric system the Imperial system works it's a particularly stupid argument.
  
• I respond to your question yet again. And quite frankly at this point your intellectual dishonesty is so blatant that it's obvious that you will continue to ignore the questions and answers posed to you and parrot your "magical" attributes straw man.
  

You asked for how it doesn't work and here are the simple answers yet again:

- It doesn't maintain it's own standards anymore.
- It doesn't have units to measure electricity because it's not maintained as a standard anymore so, for example, the Imperial system can't measure electricity without just using the metric system's units.

If you want to make a claim that your daft arguments weren't refuted that's your prerogative, but given that the above exchanges are there for all to see it's not a very credible claim.



You are a liar. I've responded to your arguments many times. I have, in addition, called you dishonest because you are. I've said that you came in here with a straw man because you did (arguing against "magic" that nobody had asserted), and I have listed many more flaws to the Imperial system (not the metric system dolt) that you ignore.

Bad logic? You act like this exchange is not archived publicly.

First of all, I have to say that I am so turned of by your calling me a liar, that I almost don't find it worthwhile to respond to you. It doesn't seem to occur to you that someone might simply be wrong about something, or not notice something, or not share your assessment of something, or simply have limited time and attention to devote to a discussion, without deliberately misrepresenting the truth. Everything you have described as a lie is an honest disgreement, and you certainly don't know anything about me personally. In this discussion, only you have made it personal. Generally, I don't bother corresponding with people who take a philosphical disagreement and turn it into a personal attack. It's a very pathetic way to carry on a debate.


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You said the following:

You asked for how it doesn't work and here are the simple answers yet again:

- It doesn't maintain it's own standards anymore.
- It doesn't have units to measure electricity because it's not maintained as a standard anymore so, for example, the Imperial system can't measure electricity without just using the metric system's units.

If you want to make a claim that your daft arguments weren't refuted that's your prerogative, but given that the above exchanges are there for all to see it's not a very credible claim.
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When one says that something doesn't work, it sounds like one is saying that if that thing is tried, there will either be a false result, or else that the operation cannot be completed at all. Of your above two items, the first certainly doesn't qualify. The fact that the BI units are defined in terms of metric units wouldn't lead someone working with BI units into error and it wouldn't prevent him from completing his work. As for your second point about electrical units, it really isn't that clear to me that the units of electricity belong exclusively to the metric system. People working in the BI system always use the volt, amp, and ohm. To be working in the BI system simply means that one uses the inch, foot, yard, pound, slug, etc. for length, force, and mass. There is no feature of using the inch, foot, pound, etc. that is impossible to do or that leads to wrong conclusions. I don't think you've given anything here that could be described as "not working."



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You said the following:

Quote:
It's clear that you have no intention of responding to any of my points except by repeating endlessly that (a) you have already responded, (b) that my points are straw men, (c) that I'm dishonest, and (d) that the metric system's fatal flaw is that it defines length and mass in terms of the metric units. If you can't or won't actually argue with what I post, I see no point in enabling you further. The fog of your bad logic aside, you have proven my original point.

You are a liar. I've responded to your arguments many times. I have, in addition, called you dishonest because you are. I've said that you came in here with a straw man because you did (arguing against "magic" that nobody had asserted), and I have listed many more flaws to the Imperial system (not the metric system dolt) that you ignore.
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First of all, in my opening posts, I never said that anyone in this thread had explicitly described the metric system as having magical qualities. What I actually said was, "My only point is that the metric system doesn't have magical properties." I meant that many people in the world whom I have listened to tend to attribute a higher degree of advantage to the metric system than it deserves, and meant that I suspected that it formed a part of the motivation of some of the prior posters. I do, however, believe that you have by now attributed virtues to the metric system which it doesn't have, which could be described loosely as magical qualities, and problems to the BI system which it doesn't have.

I'm not going to waste my time exploring all of your links. I actually have a job at which they expect me to do some work. I will, however, examine one right now. You have the following three links:

Link: I talk about the Imperial system being defunct and say it doesn't work
Link: You ask me to further substantiate the claim
Link: I do so, and indicate to you that the fact that the Imperial system no longer serves its core purpose of being a measurement standard is why it is not working.

When I click on the second of these links, which you claim substantiates the idea that the BI system doesn't work, I am taken to the following post by you:

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Re: Brandon9000(Post 3377386)
Brandon9000 wrote:

Now you actually are proving my original point exactly, by claiming magical benefits to the metric system which don't exist.

That's just a plain lie. Name one magical benefit I claimed.

Quote:
First of all, US units have been defined in terms of metric units since 1893, not World War 2.

Which contradicts not a thing I said. I told you that the inch was globally standardized during WW2. This is daftitude as well.

Quote:
Secondly, you don't have to worry about standards for British imperial units related to electricity, because the British system has no separate units for voltage, current, etc.

That's not a "worry" it's an example of how the Imperial system is defunct.

Quote:
Any British imperial unit of length can be measured just as easily as a metric one in terms of the speed of light. Since 1893, the inch has been defined as 2.54 cm exactly and the avoirdupois pound as 453.59237 kilograms exactly. Both units use seconds. Force, power, etc. are defined in terms of mass, length, and time. The meter is defined in terms of the speed of light, and the kilogram is defined in terms of a particular platinum-iridium bar in a vault in Paris. The BI units don't have new independent definitions, only because they can easily be related to the metric definition.

No, it's because the Imperial system makes no sense and there's no globally recognized body that maintains such standards for the Imperial system.

Quote:
Practially speaking, one almost never needs the definition of a unit to work with it.

Practically speaking, a measurement system that needs another measurement system to define itself isn't a standard measurement system anymore and is an arbitrary naming convention and bastardization of the real measurement system it relies on.

Quote:
Very few people doing engineering in either meters or feet have to calibrate anything in terms of the absolute definition of the unit, e.g. the speed of light or the bar in the Paris vault.

That's because their various "inches" are now standardized to the metric system. Before that one man's inch was often different from another's. The Imperial system doesn't maintain such standards on its own.

Quote:
We are left with only the powers of 10 thing as a real inherent advantage.

No we are not, that's an inherent difference that provides multiple advantages that you ignore to try to group them all into one difference being the "advantage".

Quote:
I'm fine and always have been with going metric, but the mysticism attached to the metric system by people like you (as demonstrated in your post) is simply stupid.


What mysticism? You are just making stuff up and can't demonstrate one example of the "magic" and "mystical" straw men that is your stock and store in your politicized argument.
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You have descrived the above as substantiating your claim that the Imperial system doesn't work. I don't see it. Which part of the above shows how the BI system "doesn't work?" Once again, to me, not working means that something either leads to a false result or cannot be completed.


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You said the following:

Bad logic? You act like this exchange is not archived publicly.
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Your response to my accusation of bad logic doesn't constitute a refutation. It's just a statement that you appear to think will have some psychological effect and does nothing to refute my description.